Operators of telecommunications networks, especially public land mobile networks, typically protect network nodes that are used to provide specific services for User Equipments, such as the Short Message Service Center for providing the short message service, wherein the protection is provided such that customers that should not use such a network node are excluded from using such a network node.
In case this protection of such a network node is permanently or temporarily not available or efficient, fraud or misuse scenarios can occur. For example, with respect to the short message service, such a fraud or misuse scenario might occur in case when a User Equipment (of a home public land mobile network) roams in a visited public land mobile network (different to the home public land mobile network) and an unprotected Short Message Service Center in a further public land mobile network instead of the (home) Short Message Service Center in the home public land mobile network. In such a case, mobile originated short message service traffic is routed from the visited public land mobile network (where the User Equipment roams) to the further public land mobile network, and therefore bypasses the home public land mobile network. Nevertheless, the inter operator tariffs still apply in the relation between the visited public land mobile network and the home public land mobile network, which can cause huge damages to the operator of the home public land mobile network. Another example of primarily a misuse case and not a fraud situation would be to use a wrong Short Message Service Center address setting within a home public land mobile network due to the fact that the User Equipment has been bought secondhand and has been used in another public land mobile network, and hence with another setting of the Short Message Service Center address.